“I think you are quite possibly right,” smiled Jonah, taking a sip from the alpha mug before tucking into his fruit. “Mm,” he intoned in a sing-song melody, “and these melon balls are seriously good.”
Miriam eyed him as he shovelled a second, heaped spoon of melon into his mouth. Her intense scrutiny managed to elicit the impossible, to both unnerve and relax him simultaneously. Martha would have been no different and that thought made his mouth curl upwards as he matched her gaze head on.
“Do you have any children?” asked Miriam, staring him out.
“I do, a little girl who’s exactly your age.”
“I’m nearly nine.”
“When’s your birthday?”
“July the fourth.”
“Ooh, that’s a very special day in the country I come from.”
“Is it a bank holiday?”
“Yes, it is sort of. It’s American Independence Day, and everyone celebrates with a big party.”
Miriam tore a chunk off a croissant before carrying on with her inquisition.
“What’s your daughter’s name?”
“She’s called Martha.”
There were many other things Jonah wanted to add. Like ‘you’d really like her’ and ‘I’ve got a spare room in my apartment just waiting for you to come visit’, but he held his tongue. Claire was side onto him, but he could instinctively feel that this whole exchange between him and Miriam was being keenly scrutinised by her too.
“When’s her birthday?”
“She’s just over a month younger than you. She’s nine in August.”
“Cool,” said Miriam, stuffing the torn piece of croissant into her mouth, bringing a temporary pause to her cross-examination. It gave Jonah a chance to turn to Claire, who was wearing a warm smile. She nodded imperceptibly, a tiny gesture which perhaps nobody else would even have spotted, but Jonah knew that it was her reassuring him that all was going well. He was desperate to reach out to take her hand, but restrained himself, opting instead to fork a couple of rashers of streaky bacon onto his plate. He’d always enjoyed Claire’s cooking but one of the things she did best was the full, traditional English breakfast – sausages with baked beans, grilled mushrooms and bacon. Nobody could crisp their bacon quite like hers. He’d just popped some into his mouth, enjoying the way it crackled on his tongue and oozed with smoky flavour, when Miriam recommenced her questioning.
“Did you used to be Mummy’s boyfriend?”
Jonah nearly choked on the bacon. How should he answer
that
?
“Miriam,” Claire interrupted.
“It’s ok,” Miriam continued unabashed, “I already know you were, because Mummy’s already told me.”
Jonah found himself stumped for words. He wished he’d read a manual on the right or wrong thing to say to someone who wasn’t your child but was the child of someone you were in love with. And if such a manual didn’t exist, then someone should goddamn write one!
“Are you
still
her boyfriend?” Miriam persisted.
Claire pushed her chair back, the legs squeaking against the wooden floorboards as she stood up. She moved towards the kitchen counter where Jonah had already clocked the presents he’d bought Miriam; two large white boxes still wrapped in cellophane sat next to the empty yellow Selfridges paper bag. One contained a game called Connect Four, the other was Twister.
“Why doesn’t Jonah play one of these with you,” she suggested to her daughter, “whilst I clear up?”
-------------------
Miriam was laughing uncontrollably as Jonah found himself in a spot of bother on the plastic Twister mat, contorting his limbs into ungainly, unlikely positions as he tried to fulfil the most recent ‘right hand on yellow’ instruction. Claire had shooed them into the lounge and he now found himself performing some weird yogic posture, head practically brushing the floor and his legs so wide apart his groin was starting to protest. His right hand was currently his ballast. If he moved it he would surely fall. Every word Miriam uttered was like a staccato beat swiftly followed by a peel of giggles. She was precariously positioned, also upside down, with half of her frame underneath Jonah’s. “You – look – like – a – wheelbarrow - that’s – missing - it’s - wheel,” she told him. Because she kept gulping for air in-between the giggles, she now had the hiccups too.
“Watch out,” warned Jonah laughing, “I’m about to try moving.”
His limbs buckled and balance failed him as he lifted his right hand off the mat. Desperate not to collapse onto Miriam he did a side roll away from her, his head landing wedged between two sofas. He lay there for a while, catching his breath as the two of them recovered.
“I win,” said Miriam.
She then hiccupped loudly, which began another round of the giggles from both of them. It was at this point that Claire walked in and observed them, the giggles clearly contagious and the happiness on her face clear for all to see. She was brandishing an I-pad.
“While you’re both in such great spirits,” she smiled, “I’ve got something else to show you that I think you’ll find even more amusing.”
It was when Jonah dug his elbows into the floor to get up that he saw it. A little ceramic statue of a cross-legged Buddha sat on a small glass coffee table.
Oh my
God, she still has hers
. They’d been at some Indian fair in a hot, Arizona grass field on a day off during one of the many tournaments to which Claire had accompanied him. A stall selling Buddha statues of all shapes and sizes had caught her eye. Some of them managed to be amazingly intricate and yet smaller than a thumbnail. Others were so gigantic you’d have needed a forklift to shift them. Claire had wanted him to buy two identical statues, about the size of her hand. “They bring good luck,” she’d promised. “You keep one with you at home and I’ll take mine back to the UK. And whenever we’re apart, our Buddha will bring us together.” He’d kept his faithfully by his beside till this very day. And now he knew she’d kept hers too. He was longing to take the Buddha into his hand and to tell Claire that he also still had his, but Miriam was here and Claire had already pressed play on the I-pad. A commercial for some new razor started. Claire clicked pause to freeze the image.
“Right,” she positioned herself between Jonah and Miriam, as they all shuffled together, sitting on the floor. She explained to Miriam about how she’d had a sort of audition to be the TV Nutritionist for a well known morning show and that now there was a video of her online for everyone to see. “I’d rather I showed you this than somebody else brought it to your attention. So here it is, me making an idiot of myself.”
She clicked the pause icon again and the film started playing. Jonah could feel the muscles in Claire’s body tense tightly and she covered her eyes in embarrassment with her hand. He couldn’t see why she was so ashamed though. On the contrary, he thought she was brilliant. There was something about her that lit up the screen and her ability to laugh at herself as everything went wrong was charming. She was loveable and attractive and so engaging that had she told viewers to go and eat mud because it was good for them, half of them would probably have taken a fistful from their flowerbeds right there and then and spooned it into their mouths.
“You looked very pretty Mummy,” said Miriam proudly when it had finished. “I really liked it.”
Claire turned to Jonah, raising a quizzical eyebrow.
“Be honest,” she warned him. “What did you
really
think? And I’ll know if you’re lying.”
CLAIRE
“Welcome to your new home,” said Dave the Floor Manager, opening the door to a sliver of space. An oval wall mirror framed by glowing light bulbs hung above a dressing table which spanned the entire length of the room.
This is insane, what’s happening?
Claire wondered if she’d wake up in a few minutes and realise that she really was just humdrum Ms Jackson after all, a woman whose life largely consisted of motherhood, meal plans and moths? Or was what had just happened in the last hour her new reality? The same make-up artist who had attended to her for the screen test had painted her face so that she once again looked flawless, although Jonah would no doubt long to attack her cheekbones with a cotton ball doused in cleansing cream. Then she’d been taken to what Dave had called ‘wardrobe’, where she’d stood between rails of designer clothes whilst a dresser had fussed about with a measuring tape, holding different colour Prada, Armani and Whistles shirts under Claire’s chin before finally settling on a royal blue sleeveless Sessun dress which finished above the knee, waist cinched in with a thin gold weave belt. “Perfect,” the wardrobe mistress admired as they’d both examined Claire’s image in the floor to ceiling mirror before she’d finished off the look with a chunky black leather stud bracelet.
Afterwards Dave had led her through a warren of corridors whose walls were plastered with glossy celebrity photos. Anthony Hopkins, Paul McCartney, David Beckham, Natasha Bridges. Eventually they’d reached a door with a handle in the shape of a gold star and, next to it, Claire’s name had been written in neat block capitals on a temporary plaque. It was all so improbable that Claire started laughing as Dave left her, with the instruction that she should relax because she wasn’t due on air for another forty-five minutes. Flush to the mirror was a deluxe fruit basket. It was still encased in cellophane onto which an envelope had been stapled. Claire pulled it off and slipped out the little card tucked inside.
Break a leg and welcome on board.
With love from the ‘Morning Cuppa’ Production Team
“Ah, that’s nice,” Claire muttered. Then, on the end of her dressing table she spotted a vase holding a bouquet of velvety red roses. Leaning against the vase was a handwritten note.
Go get-em, Firecracker.
Jonah
X
Claire closed her eyes, holding the note to her chest as she remembered how the final stage of this new reality had come about. She’d asked Jonah what he truly thought of her hideous video but before he’d had time to answer her home phone had started to ring. Someone called Richard, the editor of
Morning Cuppa
, had apologised for calling on the weekend but said he had something urgent to discuss. The response to her video had been ‘unparalleled’ he’d confided and they would love her to come on board and do her first show on Monday. She’d spent the next ten minutes resisting his advances and saying that he was very kind but this really wasn’t ‘for her’. Richard, however, was clearly a man used to getting his own way. “Name your price,” he’d shocked her. She’d politely told him that it wasn’t ‘about the money’. But then he’d started bandying sums around, ridiculous sums of money for just
one
show. More money than she earned in a fortnight for just
one
show. And they wanted her to be on air at least once a week but possibly more depending on whatever stories were in the news. Jonah had been watching her as she’d paced the room getting more and more agitated as the conversation continued and tugging frantically at her hair. She didn’t believe one word of what Richard was saying, bar the dollar signs. Her film had been ridiculous.
She’d
been ridiculous. If she took this job, money or no money, she’d end up being a laughing stock and would lose any vestige of dignity that she had. Hell, Miriam could end up embarrassed or, worse still,
bullied
in the playground all because of
her
, and that didn’t bear thinking about.
Jonah had scrambled up from the floor and gone into the kitchen, where he must have found the pad of Post-Its. He’d scribbled a message which he held under Claire’s nose.
Tell them you’ll think about it and call back later.
She’d blown Jonah a silent kiss in gratitude and asked Richard for his phone number as well as a couple of hours to ponder. Once she’d hung up, Jonah had acted as a sounding board. She’d explained exactly what she understood the gig would entail and they’d analysed the pros and cons. In the end Jonah had convinced her there weren’t actually any ‘cons’ and that any negatives were a product of Claire’s imagination. Yes, she’d been a bit rough around the edges and far from the slick pro she might aspire to be, but she’d also been a breath of fresh air, Jonah had insisted, with her own style and very unique charm.
She’d set the screen alight.
Those were his exact words and he refused to respond to her insistence that he must be delusional. “Do you honestly believe I’d want to set you up for failure?” he’d asked. She knew that he wouldn’t and had been truly touched by his belief in her. She’d lost confidence in these last few years and Anthony had done very little to restore it. In fact, he’d been particularly uninterested by her career, never fully appreciating what a Nutritionist actually did, considering it a wishy-washy discipline which was neither a Doctor nor a Dietician, but some unsatisfactory hippy half-way house.
After she’d called Richard back and agreed to his offer, they’d all celebrated with a team bear hug. “My Mummy’s going to be famous,” Miriam had started singing, overexcited. “I love you so much darling,” Claire told her daughter as the trio wrapped their arms around one another, squeezing tightly. She’d felt so blessed that Jonah had been there to share this moment, making sure to catch his eye so he knew that her ‘I love you darling ’ was addressed at him as well.
---------------
“Think of everyone in the studio being naked if you get nervous,” Jonah had suggested, promising her it was a tried and tested technique which he’d employed on the tennis court. Every time he’d ever felt uptight during a match, he used to imagine his opponent running around the court in the nude. The imaginary vision of their swinging penis and bouncing testicles somehow made him relax into the game better.
The heat from the lights, the whir of the cameras and the fact that this programme was going out
live
did little to allay Claire’s fears. But instead of allowing negative ‘why on earth am I doing this’ thoughts to enter her psyche, she remembered Jonah’s advice and put it into practice. After that it was all plain sailing. The studio was awash with tits and asses as Claire thanked the viewers for their support and neatly segued into the segment they’d prepared: How to get children to eat more fruit and vegetables.
Somehow, imagining Natasha in her birthday suit allowed Claire to relax and block out not only the immediate environment, but the petrifying knowledge that three million viewers were currently watching this from their living room. She talked to the show’s presenter as if she was giving advice to a friend who was struggling to make their child eat healthily.
“I find,” she said, reaching for a melon, “that making food look attractive really helps. My daughter isn’t a massive fan of melon, but if I slice it up into what she calls ‘melon smiles’ and then cut the fruit into segments so that they look like teeth, then she can’t get enough of it. Children love to use their imagination, and this encourages that, as well as helping them fuel up on Vitamin C.”
As she spoke, she started cutting the melon into small curves with the knife, nothing going wrong. Even the cherries she placed on top for decoration behaved themselves, not one of them tumbling to the floor. Next she stretched for a plate of thin pancakes that had been already prepared.
“These,” she began, “are not exactly a health-food and most children’s idea of a tasty pancake is one smothered in sugar or honey or chocolate spread. But if you get your children involved with the actual preparation process, then it’s amazing what you can get them to eat.”
Little bowls loaded with different berries were lined up in a row at the front of the work station. Claire painted a large circle on the pancake with some blueberries, before helping herself to a handful of raspberries.
“Berries are plentiful at the moment. Because they’re in season they’re cheap in the shops or you can even grow or pick your own. I’m making a smiling face,” she explained, designing a crescent with the red fruit, before adding a large strawberry for a nose and a couple of grapes for eyes. “But your child might want to design a car, or a cat or a tower. Take their lead, let them decide. And the best bit is when they get to eat it, berries and all. They’ll probably ask for seconds.”
Face finished, she pushed the plate toward the camera. And then she couldn’t help herself. “Voila” slipped out of her mouth and her arms involuntarily performed her trademark jazz-hand gesticulation.
Idiot, why did you do that?
Inwardly she cringed, but on the outside her smile remained fixed.
Next they moved on to vegetables and rather than cook anything on the spot, Claire had prepared some dishes at home which she’d brought in. One of the researchers had transferred her delicacies to the show’s own branded crockery. Celery boats filled with cream cheese. Rice mixed with peas and corn. And a bowl of spaghetti, topped with cheese and spinach sauce.
Thank goodness I gave myself that manicure last night
. That’s what Claire thought to herself as she pointed towards each dish in turn. “Sometimes the best way to get children to eat vegetables is by being sneaky. Hide them, so that they don’t even realise what they’re eating. Pulses are so good for you that I never miss an opportunity to mix them with rice. As for spinach, it’s one of the healthiest vegetables out there, packed with anti-oxidants and iron but very few children will actually eat it in its natural cooked or raw form. There’s a very easy-to-make cheese and spinach pasta sauce, however, which should be going up on the show’s website. I’ve yet to find a child or adult who doesn’t like it and, if you want to gourmet it up a little, you can experiment by spicing it with a pinch of ground mustard or curry powder.”
Natasha picked up a celery boat as she rounded off the item, thanking Claire for her fabulous tips and reiterating that details for all recipe ideas would be up on the website by the end of the show. A couple of seconds before they went into a commercial break she popped the celery boat into her mouth.
From nowhere, Claire was suddenly surrounded by a cluster of people, as if she were a sugar cube that had been sniffed out by an army of ants. They ushered her to the side of the set. A soundman unclipped the mike pack which had been attached to the back of her dress. Richard, the editor, hugged her. “Dahling, that was bloody marvellous,” he enthused, “and just what we wanted.” Then a photographer led her by the forearm, positioning her in front of a large, plain green screen. He did her “voila” jazz hand gesticulation. “Would you mind terribly posing for the camera just like that?” he asked.
------------
Back in her dressing room, Claire felt somewhat dazed by it all. What just happened?
Did
it just happen? And if it did, then had she really been any good or was the crew just being terribly British and polite about it? She could remember nothing. It felt like an out-of-body experience. Someone knocked at the door.
“Come in.”
The door opened and Georgia’s face peered round. Claire shot out of her chair and screamed.
“Oh my God, I am so pleased to see you. Please tell me, what just happened?”
“What happened,” said Georgia, sidling into the room and shutting the door behind her, “is that you, my friend, were brilliant. Honestly, you couldn’t have been any better. You’re a natural.”
Habit meant that Claire was about to refute Georgia’s claims and tell her she must be lying but, as she caught herself on the brink of uttering those words, she stopped.
“What are you doing here anyway?” she asked instead, noting that something about Georgia looked a bit different. Her mane of chestnut hair was glossier than normal. Had she had it cut? Her face was glowing. Had she had a facial? Or heaven forbid it, a face
lift
?
“I’m filming a pilot for a quiz show in a studio here today,” she answered. “But we’re still waiting for the presenter to arrive so I went to the staff café to grab a coffee and you, my love, were playing on the TV monitor they’ve got there. I didn’t even know you’d been offered the job. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. ”